The LHC main dipoles and quadrupoles toward series production

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is under construction at CERN. Most of its 27 km underground tunnel will be filled with superconducting magnets, mainly 15 m long dipoles and 3.3 m long quadrupoles. In total 1248 dipole and 400 quadrupole magnets will be built (including spares), all wound with copper stabilized NbTi Rutherford cables and designed to operate in superfluid helium at 1.9 K. The dipoles operative field is 8.3 T, the system being designed for possible operation up to 9 T (ultimate field). The pre-series dipole production has started in 2000 in three companies while the series dipole construction will start at the beginning of 2003. As far as quadrupoles are concerned, the prototypal phase (carried out at CEA-Saclay, F) is followed directly by the series construction, started in March 2002. In the paper the magnet main characteristics are reviewed and the special tooling, put in place to fulfill the mass production with suitable accuracy and safety margin, is described. The results obtained on the first fifteen pre-series magnets as well as the effect of the corrective actions taken to meet the necessary field quality are discussed. Finally a realistic plan of the project, foreseeing that last dipoles are delivered in summer 2006, is presented.